


No Good Deed

by ChocoboValentine (Chajiko)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Blue Buddies, Hate Crimes, Hurt/Comfort, Once Kurt makes a friend they're stuck with him forever, Rescue!Loki, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-07-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 03:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1764113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chajiko/pseuds/ChocoboValentine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt Wagner's first day in New York City isn't going well--and it ends even worse.  Mutant hate is rampant, and he doesn't blend too well into a crowd.  Luckily, he is not alone in the vast, sprawling urban jungle, and he finds a friend in the most unexpected of places.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It Takes Just One Too Many

The last ‘port had been too much.    
Kurt had been sent to New York to not only keep an eye on things, but also to take some badly needed rest time to himself, but he hadn’t done much by the way of resting.

He was already weary by the time he spotted them—two young people standing at the very edge of one of the many suspension bridges that crossed the water that divided New Yok City.  He had been pushing himself—teleporting and springing from building to building, seeing how far he could take himself before he had to admit defeat and make his way back to his short-term apartment.  
The two young people were holding hands, and their faces were a mix of determination and terror—and it was something Kurt knew well.  
In a split second he was beside them on the edge of the bridge, seizing each firmly about the waist just as they began to topple, startled.  He wrapped his tail firmly about one of the struts above and braced his feet, holding both close.  
“Now—that’s not the way to solve anything,” he said kindly, ignoring the looks of horror as the two realised who—what—had hold of them.

The babbled alarm and questions were nothing new to Kurt—he answered them with his usual patience, and soon enough the questions gave way to tears, and the two laid bare the reason why they had almost let themselves end in the water below.  
Kurt was no psychologist, and he knew it—but by now a small crowd had gathered, even this part of the bridge well-lit now that the sun had gone down.  There were a few officers above, and from what Kurt could hear, there was some confusion as to whether or not he was helping or threatening the pair.  
“Look,” he said said at last in his most earnest tone.  “Please—this is a waste.  A terrible waste.  Let me take you up—take you to where it is safe, and then you can perhaps see that there are other endings than this one.”  
The two were too exhausted to argue, and Kurt wasted no time.  He drew in a breath, took a tighter hold on both, and—

_**BAMF** _

They stood on the bridge in the knot of onlookers, right next to the group of officers.  Kurt released the two immediately and staggered back, hands raised as one of the officers whipped out his gun and aimed it straight at him.  
“O’Riley!” another snapped.  “Stand down—if he’d wanted them dead, he wouldn’t have brought them up here!”  
“Mutie,” The officer named O’Riley snarled.  “And a freaky one too.  You’re not the kind we want around here—you only did what you did because you saw you were being watched.”  
Kurt sighed and lowered his hands as the policeman grudgingly put away his weapon.  
“Please,” he said, managing to summon a smile as he gestured to the young people, clinging to each other and weeping.  “Take care of them.  I’m going home.”  
He could feel exhaustion dragging at him, and even as he gathered the energy to ‘port—he abruptly checked himself.  It would push too far, leave him totally helpless.

_You may have already done that, Wagner._

His thoughts were grim as he slipped away, walking the long length of the bridge back towards his apartment, letting the sounds of the drama he had both prevented and facilitated to fade behind him.

It was a stupidly long walk.  The night deepened around him and he tugged his hood up, wrapping his tail tightly about one leg to try and make it a little less conspicuous.  

It wasn’t long, though, as he passed through one of the city’s less savoury areas, before someone seized him by the shoulder and spun him around.  
Kurt automatically sprange backwards, but his exhaustion turned his normal agility to something of a graceless stumble.

“Mutant,” the man snarled.  “As if this damn place weren’t bad enough.”  
  
“Leave me alone,” Kurt said, as much dignity in his voice as he could muster.  “I am just passing through—I will be gone before you know it.”  
  
The shove was no surprise—but the hands that caught him were.  It was not a friendly catch, either—the hands seized and held him, and the blow to his face from a well-experienced fist was even more unwelcome, though sadly not totally unexpected.    
  
Kurt knew how these things ended.  Broken mutant bodies in alleyways, the news convenintly forgetting to report another hate crime.  He gathered his energy and—

_**BAMF** _

It was a miscalculation on his part.  It was too much—he traveled a scarce hundred and fifty feet, and his stumbling run did nothing to put distance between him and the thugs behind him.  He ran blindly and found—to his horror and resigned, sardonic amusement—that he had found himself in a blind alley.  There were nothing but high walls all about, and the closest thing there was to a way out was a fire escape that ended a good 15 feet above the ground.  The men were closing on him, and he leapt—

and missed.

They were on him, blows raining down before he could regain his feet.  
 _  
Dead in an alley.  Mein Gott, what a way to go._

He wasn’t fully conscious of when the blows suddenly slowed and then stopped, replaced by the sound of other blows, but strangely none of them were hitting him.

The hands that touched him next were cold, but they were passing gentle, and Kurt gladly surrendered himself to darkness.

 


	2. An Unexpected Case of The Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt discovers his rescuer--and learns more than he ever expected.

When he awoke, it was to the familiar sounds and smells of an E.R. room.  He knew he was lying in a bed, but he felt rather like he was floating--the effects of the painkillers they had doubtless pumped into him.  
“Mr. Wagner?”   
There was a nurse leaning over him, and he managed a faint smile.    
“ _Ja_.  For you, my dear, I could be anyone.”  His words were slurred, and he winced internally at the terrible line.  
The nurse rolled her eyes.    
“One of those,” she said, sounding amused and resigned.  “How do you feel?”  
Kurt clenched his eyes shut for a moment and then blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision.  “ _Ach--es tut mir leid, Fraülein_. Forgive my stupid words.  I feel--” he considered the question seriously.  “...floaty.” he said at last, and decided that he wasn’t quite as lucid as he thought he’d been.  
The nurse smiled.    
“Considering the morphine we put you on, that’s not a surprise.  Do you know where you are?”  
“E.R.”  Kurt said firmly.  “I know rooms like these all too well.”    
The nurse gave him a faintly puzzled look at that, but stepped back as she spoke again.  
“Officer Esposito has a few questions for you, if you’re up to it.”    
Kurt nodded--and instantly wished he hadn’t.  The officer was brisk and businesslike, and asked the usual sort of questions.  Kurt knew, though, that there would be no investigation.  Soon enough the officer left and the nurse bustled away, leaving Kurt to try and grope his way towards more lucid thoughts.  

Eventually a doctor entered and flipped through the omnipresent charts before taking a seat next to the bed.  
“You look like someone put you in a dryer with a load of rocks,” she said with a sardonic sort of smile.  “Broken collarbone, half a dozen ribs broken, concussion, nose broken.  Nothing life-threatening, luckily.  Checked you out completely--nothing bleeding inside.  Just a lot of bruising.”  She gave him a sympathetic look, and Kurt raised his eyebrows, giving her a “what will be will be” sort of an expression.  
“Will you need to keep me here?” He said, shifting a little on the bed--his tail was starting to cramp.  
“No,” the doctor said with a shake of her head.  “Your friend waited--he said he’d call a cab and get you both home.”  
“My friend,” Kurt said blankly, and the doctor blinked.    
“I assumed--he was the one who dragged you in here, after all.”    
Kurt was frankly baffled--but the mystery would be solved sooner or later.  
“As soon as you’re ready,” the doctor continued, “we’ll get you back in your clothes and send you on home.  But--” she raised a finger.  “You’re going to need follow up and rehab, and you’ll be sorry if you neglect it.”  
“This is not my first rodeo, _Fraülein Doktor._ ” Kurt said with a smile, and very gently eased himself up to a sitting position.

They insisted on a wheelchair.  Kurt felt an utter fool, but there wasn’t much he could do in way of argument.  When they wheeled him out to the waiting area he glanced around quickly, looking for any familiar face--and saw none.    
The dark haired man who rose from a chair and came towards them was dressed formally in a perfectly tailored suit, including an opera cape that covered him to mid-thigh.  
“Kurt Wagner,” he said formally.  “I am glad you are conscious.  Come--let us leave this place.”  
Kurt opened his mouth to protest--but closed it again, mind racing despite the drug induced haze.  The aristocratic features, the sleek hair, the fine clothing--

_Loki._

He allowed himself to be helped into the cab and was mildly alarmed when Loki joined him, and then gave directions to a place that was definitely not Kurt’s own temporary flat.  
  
“Loki,” he said in a low voice, gold eyes on the other man’s face, and he was rewarded with the twitch of one corner of Loki’s mouth.  
“Yes.”  He confirmed, still looking straight ahead.  
“ _Why?_ ” Kurt demanded.  
“Why what?” Loki turned his head to look Kurt full in the face, and he appeared faintly amused.  “Why help you?  Why wait?  Why take a cab?  Why New York City?  Why take you to my flat?”  
“All of the above,” Kurt said a little faintly, feeling a headache starting to throb somewhere behind his eyes.  
“I will answer the most salient of those,” Loki said, obviously amused.  “I have found out much about you in the last few hours.  I know that you are alone here in New York City, and that you will need a place to rest that is better than the hole in which you have taken up residence. Also, it amuses me to put Professor Xavier and the X-Men in my debt.”  
Kurt sighed and slumped back in the cab seat, raising his hand to rub at his eyes.  
“...Alright,” he admitted.  “All of that makes good sense.”  
  
They were just pulling up in front of the high-rise to which Loki had directed them, and so there was no more time for questions.  Loki paid the driver and let Kurt extricate himself from the cab.  Loki walked just behind and to the side of Kurt, as if to put out a hand in case of a stumble, but otherwise did not touch him.  The doorman eyed Kurt dubiously, but one sharp word from Loki got them inside almost instantly, and soon enough they were riding the lift to the top floor.  
The silence stretched on between them--if it was awkward, neither man noticed.  Loki was watching Kurt with intent interest, and Kurt was busy wrestling with this odd new situation---and the morphine.  
The hallway into which the lift debouched had only two doorways.  One was marked “STAIRS” in discrete black letters, and the other was marked with a single number.  
The door didn’t seem to be locked--it seemed to almost open with just a gesture from Loki, revealing a penthouse flat that was almost comical in its ostentatious, expensive austerity.    
Loki waved Kurt to the sofa and turned to close the door.    
Then, as Loki pulled off the opera coat, Kurt got a look at Loki’s hands.  
  
They were manacled--probably only a foot and a half of some oddly shaped chain between the two cuffs.  There was something off about them--not something he could see, but rather something he could _sense_.  It wasn’t the manacles, however, that were the most surprising thing.  Rather it was the skin of Loki’s wrists, lower arms and hands--

_blue._

  
Unmistakably blue.  Not as blue as Kurt himself, and marked with odd lines and whorls rather than fur, but definitely blue.


	3. Blue Silk, No Shoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Very short today--please forgive me. It's been a very harrowing day and I'm not feeling up to much, but I wanted to get some of this up here!
> 
> Thank you for the kind kudos, really <3 If you could find it in your heart to leave a comment, I could very much use the encouragement right now!

Kurt opened his mouth, a dozen questions dancing on the tip of his tongue--and then his drugged brain caught up and he firmly closed it again, smiling faintly.  
  
“A wise choice, Mr. Wagner,” Loki said dryly, handing up the opera coat a little awkwardly with his manacled hands.  “The explanation will doubtless be forthcoming, but not tonight.  I have some pyjamas that will probably fit you--you won’t want to sleep in those filthy clothes.  Also, I may seem like a poor host to put you on the couch, but I promise you that it is more comfortable than the “modern” monstrosity which passes for a bed in this flat.”

Loki very matter of factly helped Kurt into a pair of pyjamas that were obviously absurdly expensive, and also happened to almost perfectly match the blue of his skin.  Loki waved off his protests--  
“They’re worn out,” he said dismissively.  “It doesn’t matter if you bleed on them--I should have discarded them months ago.”

Kurt fingered the expensive silk and didn’t argue, though his mind was beginning to spin a little at the strangeness of all of this.  
Loki produced a bottle from the pocket of his well-cut trousers and gave it a little shake.    
“You’re to have two of these every eight hours.  Other than that, you’re supposed to rest.  No harm in you passing out on my couch for a few days, and much better than going back to that hell-hole you call home.”  
  
“It’s not a hell-hole,” Kurt said at last, and he spoke the words with a helpless little laugh.  “It’s a normal place.  But I admit that it looks like a hell-hole when compared to this, _Herr_ Loki.”

  
Loki took Kurt by the elbow and guided him back to the couch.  
“Go to sleep, Kurt Wagner,” he said, nodding at the blanket draped over the back of the couch.

Kurt half-curled on the couch, shifting restlessly until he found a position that didn’t cause undue pain.  Then, again as his slow-moving, morphine clouded thoughts caught up with him, he eyed Loki over his shoulder for a long moment.  
“Forgive me--but I still cannot fathom what it is you will gain from helping me.  Please pardon me if I say that this is not what your reputation would predict you doing.”

Loki’s smile couldn’t exactly be called pleasant--it was more speculatory than anything else.  
“Perhaps my reputation does not do me credit,” he said, sounding amused.  “Or perhaps you will just have to find out in good time why assisting you serves my purposes.”

“As long as it doesn’t involve enormous space whales,” Kurt grumbled, hunching the blanket into place.

“No,” Loki said, and his tone was pensive.  “I shan’t avail myself of those again.  They’re not Hulk-proof.”

 

 


	4. All Stones Turned

The pleasant thing about morphine, Kurt thought foggily as he awoke the next morning in the dimness of Loki’s penthouse flat, was that there was no hangover the next morning.  That was small comfort, though, as the rest of him ached as though he’d been run over by a cement truck.  
He rolled over, careful to neither crush his tail nor fall off of the couch, and was relieved to see the orange pill bottle Loki had showed him the night before resting on the coffee table.  Next to it was a bottle of water and a note, scribed on a yellow post-it note.  
  
The handwriting, presumably Loki’s, was graceful and strangely angular, as though the latin characters were not the writer’s native alphabet.

_Mr. Wagner--_   
_You are to take two of these medicaments immediately upon wakening, and I was instructed to tell you to make sure you do not take them on an empty stomach.  The contents of my kitchen are meagre, but you are welcome to what you can find.  Unfortunately I had to take my leave for the moment, but I will return._

_-Loki_

Kurt rose with a groan and padded into the kitchen, grimacing as even the soft silk of his pyjamas rubbed areas of his mis-used skin a little too much.  Loki was right--the kitchen was fairly bare, but soon enough Kurt had satisfied his current hunger with crackers and a slightly aged apple.  The painkillers went down without a fuss, and Kurt sat for a moment on the couch, feeling not much more clear-headed than he had the night before.  The strangeness of the situation was certainly not lost on him, but he again wasn’t willing to look this particular gift-horse in the mouth.  The couch was comfortable and the flat was obviously secure, otherwise Loki would not have chosen in.  Despite the heat of the New York summer the flat was blessedly cool, and the drawn shades gave just enough dim illumination to save the monstrous headache he could feel was on its way.

Eventually Kurt rose and padded about the sitting room, kitchen and dining area.  All of them were outfitted in a very modern style, sleek and impersonal, with not a single knick-knack or picture to break up the monotony.  Even the art on the walls seemed to have been chosen for its ability to blend in and avoid offense.  
“It’s like a hidiously expensive hotel,” Kurt snorted aloud at last, just to break up the silence. “No personality whatsoever.”  
  
He hesitated at the door to Loki’s room, feeling a twinge of guilt--but a moment’s reflection found him pushing the door gently open.  Loki seemed to know a great deal about him, and it was only fair that Kurt glean what he could, if there was anything to be known.  
  
The bedroom was as modern in style as the rest of the house, though here the occupant had added a few touches.  The bedding was a rich shade of dark green, and strewn across the dressing table were a few odds and ends in the form of shirt cuffs and tie tacks.  The closet door was closed, so Kurt left that for the moment.  There was a laden bookshelf in the room, the contents of which certainly required investigation--and then his attention was caught by one of the only brightly-coloured things in the entire flat, a photo resting on the nightstand of the bed.  

Kurt leaned over and peered without touching, not wanting to leave a trace of his investigation in Loki’s personal space.  
The most prominent face in the photo was that of Tony Stark.  It was a “selfie” style, but in the background were several other people, all sitting around a table that bore the remains of an enthusiastic game of poker.  Thor was there, dressed in a T-shirt emblazoned with a band logo that was several sizes too small for him. On one side of Thor was an attractive red-haired woman whom Kurt recognised as Pepper Potts, and on Thor’s other side was Loki.  The dark-haired Asgardian was dressed in a tie and button down, though the tie was loose, his collar buttons undone, and his sleeves rolled up.  He actually looked pleased, though the expression on his face was still guarded, his eyes on Thor’s face rather than on the camera.  
The edges of the photo were boxed--clearly it was not new, and clearly it had been handled quite frequently.  
  
Awash suddenly with guilt, Kurt straightened and slipped out of the bedroom.  He felt as though he’d seen something meant to be utterly private--a little window into Loki’s mind.

 

 


End file.
